


Whatever It Is We Are To One Another

by emrisemrisemris



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Aftercare, Anal, Blood, Consensual Nonconsent, First Person Narration, Garrus still misses being Archangel, Garrus’ POV, M/M, Rough Sex, Shepard has rape fantasies, Top Drop, Top Garrus, at the end of Citadel, claw scratches, dubiously safe alien fucking, during ME3, face fucking, negotiated in advance, renegade Garrus, renegade MShep, roleplaying, two messed up people have messy sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:07:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29185269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emrisemrisemris/pseuds/emrisemrisemris
Summary: He sits up; I disentangle myself and do the same. He reaches for my collar, running his fingers around the ridges, lingering teasingly over the notch left by that rocket; I stroke the back of his hand. "OK, I was trash-talking you, but you know what … screw it. I want Archangel."I stop.It takes me a couple of seconds to steady myself enough to say with false geniality "Where'd that come from?""Always been curious," Shepard says, unembarrassed. "I saw you in vigilante mode for what, two hours? And you keep bringing it up. I figured you missed it."I bite back my first instinct, which is to say something clever and pretend everything's fine. You'd think I'd be used to Shepard's knack for zeroing in on awkward topics by now. But no.
Relationships: Male Shepard/Garrus Vakarian
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24





	Whatever It Is We Are To One Another

**_I_ **

**_SKIN DEEP_ **

"You know what pisses me off the most about those CAT6 idiots?" Shepard says rhetorically, and takes another drink.

We're in the master bedroom of the apartment Shepard inherited from Anderson. Between us we're taking up all the available furniture: I have both chairs, and he's sitting up on the bed, boots on the headboard. There's a small drift of bottles accumulating at the foot of the bed, and the music player switched itself on to something inexplicable and neither of us has been bothered enough to turn it off.

The party petered out hours ago. Last I saw, Zaeed and Javik had gone to the sim arena, Jack was manoeuvring James in the direction of the guest room and everyone else was dead to the world.

We've sat up here talking about everything and nothing. Tomorrow we ship back out, and even the thought is exhausting.

"What?"

"They weren't even any good at it." He finishes the bottle and drops it at the foot of the bed, and leans over the edge to fish around for another. "If _I'd_ been hired to assassinate me and steal the _Normandy_ , I would have done it."

"Leaving aside the philosophical complications there," I comment, "yes, you would have made a much more competent mercenary than most of the ones we deal with. Not that it's hard."

"I could've been. I thought about becoming a merc instead of joining up. Pay's better." He sits back up, another bottle in hand. "Or if I'd listened to Jack and gone off to be a pirate."

"Or if you'd properly thrown in with Cerberus after you died," I add speculatively. "Some human mercenary, impossible to kill, doing the Illusive Man's dirty work ..."

"Yeah." He sits there and smirks at me, drink forgotten. "Hell, give me a decent squad and I could've taken Archangel."

I look at him and fold my arms. "Don't make me come over there, Shepard."

He sits back, and puts the bottle carefully to one side, still smirking. "Or what?"

Shepard's reflexes are unnaturally good, but he's not even trying. He doesn't put up more than a token resistance before he's flat on his back on the bed, breath knocked out of him, with me kneeling over him and pinning both wrists over his head. To bastardise the human saying, reach hath its privileges. "I'm sorry, you were saying?"

"I could too have taken Archangel," he says again, but he's still grinning.

I let go of his wrists and go down on one elbow, lowering my head to within inches of his, close enough that I can feel the warmth of his body even through the armour, and my mandibles graze his jaw when I open my mouth. He's warm, and smells good. He's also unsubtly angling for more, which I don't intend to give him. Yet. "Archangel disagrees. And people who disagree with Archangel have this strange habit of turning up dead and with interesting injuries."

Shepard reaches up to run his fingers through my crest, sliding them down the length of the quills until he finds the soft new growth at the bottom, where the scales haven't fully hardened yet. I shiver.

"I already did the dead part," he says, deadpan. "Can we go straight to the interesting injuries?"

I start undoing the fastening of his shirt. "What did you have in mind?"

He doesn't answer, just lies back and sighs contentedly as I get his shirt open and trace my claws down his chest.

Shepard has the kind of scar collection only amassable by a man who's both a career frontline soldier and a reckless masochist. It's impressive, even taking account of how damnably easily he scars. And this is only a year or so's worth. (He says that of all the things about Cerberus bringing him back, losing his old scars was the hardest thing to get used to. Years of skin memory, gone.)

The next few minutes pass in warm, breathless silence, and by the end of them, half my armour is on the floor and I'm not even sure where Shepard's shirt went.

I'm just working on his belt buckle when he says "I want to try something."

"Oh?"

He sits up; I disentangle myself and do the same. He reaches for my collar, running his fingers around the ridges, lingering teasingly over the notch left by that rocket; I stroke the back of his hand. "OK, I was trash-talking you, but you know what … screw it. I want Archangel."

I stop.

It takes me a couple of seconds to steady myself enough to say with false geniality "Where'd _that_ come from?"

"Always been curious," Shepard says, unembarrassed. "I saw you in vigilante mode for what, two hours? And you keep bringing it up. I figured you missed it."

I bite back my first instinct, which is to say something clever and pretend everything's fine. You'd think I'd be used to Shepard's knack for zeroing in on awkward topics by now. But no.

"It was a lot simpler," I say eventually. Every word feels like a tiny betrayal, but spirits forgive me, it's true. "The work I did on Palaven - and serving with you - I wouldn't change a thing. And I definitely prefer you alive. But as Archangel?" The memories are vivid, painful. "All I had to think about was the target and the gun."

Shepard takes my hand and squeezes. We sit in silence for a moment.

The very first time I went to bed with him - after the crash course in human anatomy, after that wonderful realisation that he wanted from me exactly what I wanted to do to him - after we'd finished, he looked at me and said _You have no idea how good it feels being,_ meaningful pause, _relieved of command._ We laughed. And then we got about two hours' sleep before suiting up and jumping through the Omega-4 relay into hell.

"Nothing wrong with missing the simpler times," Shepard says after a while. "And it sounds like being Archangel for a couple hours might take some weight off your shoulders."

Now he's said it, I can't let the thought go.

"If I'm Archangel," I enquire, "who does that make you?"

Shepard gives me a sidelong look. "What did I say earlier? Some merc. A Cerberus hotshot who made it onto your hit list. I reckon I could make the cut."

I contemplate the possibility of my Shepard, the real one, only in it for the money. Or, worse, one of the Illusive Man's fanatics, brainwashed or indoctrinated: all that punishing competence and blowtorch charisma turned on anyone standing in the Illustrious Leader's way.

White Cerberus armour; he'd carry it off. No helmet. Blood on his cheekbones. That particular grin.

The sensible layers of my brain say: _terrifying._ My libido has other opinions.

"Never mind _on_ the list, you'd be at the top of it," I manage. Abruptly I have to move. I get off the bed, and lean on the doorframe of the weapons cupboard, simultaneously unsettled by the thought and turned on.

"If you don't want to -" He gets up as well, playfulness gone, eyes full of worry.

"I do want to. That's what worries me." I turn back to him, reaching across the gap between us to cup his chin in one hand. He catches his breath and my stomach lurches; I do want to; I want him. "Shepard, if I go too hard -"

He covers my hand with his own. Warmth envelops my fingers. Earth is eight degrees colder than Palaven, and human baseline temperature is high to compensate; Shepard's metabolism runs almost a degree above even than that, thanks to all the cyberware. He always feels feverish-hot, on the edge of burning up. 

I'm half expecting him to say something unhelpful like _I can take it_ , and open my mouth to tell him that that's not what's eating at me. 

Instead he says "Hard is good. I don't mind bleeding. But if it stops feeling good then you safeword, or I will. Don't hurt yourself." He cracks a smile. "Not when you're supposed to be hurting me."

He has the same terrible Shepard grin he always has when he's delivered what he thinks is a brilliant one-liner, but his hand is very warm and tight on mine, holding me steady.

I take a breath. "Safeword. Yeah. What do you want to use?"

"I want Archangel," he says. "So if I call you by your name, we stop."

I like the way it sounds in his voice. I'm not entirely sure I should like it quite so much.

"Same goes for you, then. What should I call you?"

"Lazarus," Shepard says without a pause. Seeing my uncomprehending look, he adds "It's the codename Cerberus used for the project to rebuild me. A guy in one of our holy books who came back from the dead."

"Lazarus," I say, testing the syllables. Familiar. Could almost be turian. "I like it."

"No you don't. Cerberus elite, remember?" He grins. It's another infuriating specimen of the species. "Make the punishment fit the crime."

His visible excitement is infectious.

I still have trouble believing he wants me this much. As Garrus, as Archangel, at all.

"Be careful what you wish for," I tell him, mock-ominously.

He kisses me on the cheekplate, and briefly nuzzles his forehead against mine; the touch lingers hotly on my scales. "Step outside. Give me a couple minutes. And ... gear up."

He heads for the bathroom as I start climbing back into the armour.

Suited up, I leave the bedroom and hear the door close behind me. The apartment's quiet, and dark. Liara's drone bobs, dormant, against one wall; nobody else is visible as I come down the stairs and duck into the kitchen to wash my hands and collect my guns. Rifle first, and then, after a moment's thought, pistol. (I'm suddenly glad I cleaned them earlier.) I go over to the huge floor-to-ceiling window, dump out the thermal clips and flick both weapons over to the training setting before putting the safeties back on.

I hitch the rifle over my back until it catches to its socket, and immediately feel more in control, more centred in myself. There's me, fragile in my body, acutely aware of the weight of blood and breath beneath my plates; and then there's the other me, the one who's a composite of flesh and armour and visor and gun and the knowledge that I wouldn't be who I am without them.

I'm as much of a cyborg as Shepard is, truth be told; he just wears a little more of his metal on the inside.

I put my forearm up to the window and lean into the glass. I tell the visor to show me my own life signs, and watch my heartbeat scribble its way from side to side.

Outside the business of the Silversun Strip goes on, even in the middle of the night cycle. The casino, the arena: no matter where you are, what time it is, there's someone willing to take your money or pay to watch you put a bullet in the other guy. Even here, in the Citadel that's been the heart of galactic civilisation since before my dumb ancestors crawled out of their eggs, all you have to do is scratch the surface and you find the same rot as everywhere else.

I turn to go, and catch my reflection in the glass, darkly; barely more than the outline of my crest and the edges of my orbital and zygomatic plates thrown into sharp relief by the visor's glow. The shadow hides the scars.

And there he is, there I am, Archangel looking out over the lights of Omega, primarch of all he surveys.

**_II_ **

**_SOLETTA ROW_ **

The apartments on Soletta Row rival anything you could find on Illium: contrary to popular belief, Omega does have such a thing as nice districts. It's just short on nice people. Omega's rich are the worst kind of scum - slumlords, drug barons, organ dealers, slavers - and they love Omega, as long as they don't have to look at it. All the customers and product they could ever want, bottled up together. And Aria's rates are _very_ reasonable compared to what you'd pay in most places: she can afford to thin her margins. Monopolies are good for that.

The permanent residences on Soletta Row are like fortresses. Spy cams, drones, guards, the works. Much as it pains me to admit it, out of my league. This one, though, is a second home; one of the drug barons rents it out to her business associates when they visit Omega. Right now, the guest is a human mercenary they call Lazarus, who specialises in high-stakes strike missions - jailbreaks, kidnappings, the occasional execution. Messy, nasty stuff; the word is he doesn't care who or what he goes through to get to his target, and the little official information I've been able to dig up about him bears it out. The codename is out of some human holy book, a man who returned from the grave.

I intend to put him back there.

Lazarus hasn't been on my radar long. A few months. He's got a fast ship and a little commando squad and a lot more tech than he should be able to afford, including - allegedly - some heavy-duty bio mods, which means friends in high places. Rumour is, his boss (who isn't the drug baron; they're just old friends) has deputised him to come talk to the Blood Pack here about some scientist, and probably make with the kidnapping if it goes south. He's turned up very quietly: I'm only _fairly_ sure that Aria knows who he is, and I only know thanks to a tipoff.

The first obstacle is his ground team, on guard outside. Definitely professionals, but one of them never sees me coming and the other one … well, I've yet to meet a biotic who could outrange me. Then there's the main door. Soletta Row money gets you a _good_ lock. No regular omnitool would have a hope of getting through it in under an hour. Unfortunately for him, I know an engineer who was more than happy to trade a set of codes in exchange for a bullet in the guy who was blackmailing her. The lock takes me about twenty seconds.

My visor's heat vision shows nobody downstairs. The apartment doesn't look much used, and whoever picked out the artwork preferred size over quality. I head for the stairs, drawing my pistol. It's better for close work.

This must be the bedroom. The lock's another good one, but the codes come through again. I disable the door's auto-open at the same time, and edge it open manually. Once I have it open an inch or two, the armour servos pick up the strain, and I slip inside a moment later with barely a sound.

It's dimly lit, done out in fake wood - but quality fake wood - and with the empty, unlived-in look of a hotel room. There's the bed and two chairs, and that's it. Doors here, there, in the corner. I close the door behind me, and a noise finally catches my attention.

My first thought is: _real water? Damn._ The second one is dark amusement. He's in the shower. His armour's on the floor by the bed, and his guns are - where? - here, in what turns out to be the weapons cupboard next to the door. I can't resist having a closer look: there's a Mantis, Vindicator, Carnifex, all heavily modded - the collection is worth serious money. More to the point, the man has taste. Maybe I'll have the Mantis when this is over. You know, as a souvenir.

I close and lock the door to the weapons room, lean on the wall opposite the bathroom door, and wait as the sound of the water shuts off.

The door hisses open and he comes round the corner into the room wearing a towel tucked round his waist, and nothing else. He's just raking his fingers through his fair hair when he sees me, and stops.

Lazarus is stocky for a human, fit and scarred. A net of dully glowing cracks spiderwebs across his cheekbones and forehead, and there's a faint red radiance at the back of his eyes. Seems like the rumours of a biosynthetic botch job might be true. Could be Cerberus. Could be worse.

Pretty enough, though, which I hadn't expected. And those are damn nice collarbones for a human.

His eyes flicker round the room. I can almost see him tallying up the locked door, the discarded armour, the weapons all the way over there, and not liking the total. His gaze lingers on me, taking in the armour, the visor, the pistol in my hand and the rifle on my back. He meets my eyes, briefly, and it feels like touching a live wire.

He shifts his weight, folds his arms. His heart rate has spiked, the visor tells me, but he's not showing it. I’m impressed.

"Normally I wouldn't say no to being naked with a turian," he says. His voice turns abruptly sharp. "But we haven't been introduced. Who the hell are you?"

Nice opening line, especially under pressure, and raises some _intriguing_ questions if true. Shame it won't do him any good.

"The locals call me Archangel," I tell him, and bring up the pistol. His heart rate jumps again, but he doesn't flinch. My respect for him goes up another notch; whatever else he is, he’s a pro. "For all my … good deeds."

"How much are they paying you?" Lazarus demands. "Whatever it is, one, it's not enough. Two, I'll double it."

I look at him levelly. "I don't do this for pay."

"Right," he says sarcastically. "So are you doing it for fun, or out of the kindness of your heart?"

"It's for a cause I believe in." I show my teeth. "Which isn't to say I don't enjoy it."

I could pull the trigger right now, between one word and the next, but there's no satisfaction in it. I want him to understand what he's done, why I'm here. I want him to _know._ I want to see it in his eyes.

They're striking eyes, very blue. The glow's a little weird, but it definitely adds a certain something.

"If you're waiting for me to start begging for my life," he says, as if he's read my mind, "we're gonna be here a while."

"I've got time," I drawl. "If you're waiting for your ground team, they won't be joining us." That's shaken him. Finally, a crack in the armour; time to put the claws in. "Or, I'm sorry, were you expecting someone else tonight? Am I going to have to comfort a grieving boyfriend?"

"Fuck you," he says flatly, and something changes in his posture. Whatever bravado he had, however he was holding onto it, it's gone. I've got him.

It feels _good_.

"Start talking," I say. "Give me something useful, and I'll make it quick."

A brief flash of fire, failing almost as soon as it shows. "And if I don't?"

"Then -" I pause, deliberately "- we're going to be here a while."

"What do you want?" he says, quietly. The visor scrawls his heartbeat across my vision in jagged spikes, one-two, one-two, one-two. My own isn't much slower.

_I want -_ "Who you're working for. Why you're here. Your contacts. And whatever your boss gave you to make sure they listened. All those little bits of information you hold on to just in case you ever need to ruin someone's day."

I'm almost hoping he doesn't have anything useful. I want to hurt him, very badly. A clean ending isn't nearly enough payback for a man whose friends buy space on Soletta Row.

"I'm a soldier, not an information broker," he snaps. "If I want to ruin someone's day, I use a gun."

Figures.

"Who do you work for?" I ask him again.

His eyes glitter. "Cerberus."

It was high on the list. Their top man certainly has the money. "What does the Illusive Man want on Omega?"

"I've no idea," he says bluntly. "His contact was supposed to find me. I'm just the muscle. He doesn't tell me shit. "

"So you've got nothing," I say levelly.

"I've got resources," he says. "Nobody's incorruptible. Come on. What do you want? Money? The guns? Take them. Hell, do you want a job? Looks like I've got two empty slots on the team -"

He stops talking as I sight down the gun. Not the killing shot, not yet, but something to make him sweat. I can almost taste it -

_I want -_

"Future favours. The goddamn ship. Fucking hell, I don't want to die!" His voice is rising. "I'll do anything -"

When did he come closer?

_I want -_

_-_ to put my claws into his back, my teeth in his collarbones, taste his skin, hear him gasp. I want to hurt him, and I want to fuck him senseless, use his body like a cut-price doll-mech and then make him beg me for another round.

I move towards him, lower the gun. No need for it, this close. I pop the seal on one gauntlet, then the other, and drop them behind me. His breath catches in his throat as I take hold of his chin in finger and thumb, the tip of my other claw resting delicately just where the blood vessel nears the surface, under the jaw. I can feel his pulse quicken under my hand.

"Maybe I won't kill you," I say, and press just a little, hard enough to dent the skin. "I have a better idea."

He tries to turn his head away. I hold him still, and lean in closer, breathing in his scent.

"Take your pills," I say in his ear. "I wouldn't want you passing out before the fun's over."

He closes his eyes. "Drawer under the sink. Behind me."

I step back, and put the gun back on him while I walk him into the bathroom and try the drawer. Sure enough, as well as the spare soap and Cerberus-issue first-aid kit, there's serious antiallergens, dextro _and_ levo, human and turian condoms and medical gloves, and heavy-duty universal lubricant. He wasn't lying about sleeping with turians, then. Good. He'll already know exactly how painful it can be.

I throw him the tablet bottle, and watch to make sure he takes them while I dose myself and shed the rest of the armour, then the undersuit. I leave the gun on the sink, in case I need it.

He's shaking; he nearly drops the tablets twice, then needs both hands to get the lid back on, and can't grab the towel when it finally slips. Underneath he's fully erect, rock hard.

"Well, look at that," I breathe, crossing back towards him. "You do want me."

He doesn't answer, and doesn't move. Fine.

I pin him against the wall. He's about thirty centimetres shorter than me, tall for a human. Up close, it's visible that his torso and thighs are crisscrossed with fine lines, some bright, some faded silver. Some of them have the ragged shapes of old battle damage. Most are only grazes, but so fresh they haven't faded. Long, clean grazes in neat, wide-spaced sets of three.

Wordlessly, I spread my claws out over his chest, tracing the old scars, and press, just a little. Then I pull, slowly, shallowly, and listen to him moan.

On the second go, as the first set of red lines are blooming across his skin, I swerve my hand just enough to scrape his nipple with the side of one claw. That gets a strangled gasp. He's fighting to keep control of himself, and he's already losing.

"How did a Cerberus commander get a taste for turians?" I ask, lazily, like we have all the time in the world. "Seems like taking the _screw aliens_ thing a little too literally."

"We hire mercenaries. And turians are good at taking orders."

It's in a thousand generations of blood and bone. Might as well be in the damn soil of Palaven. You follow orders, and you hope like hell for a good commander, one you can trust, so that maybe you'll never have to find out what you choose when your options are _Do the right thing_ and _Do as you're told._

"I was never very good at that part." I lean in, drinking in the scent of his skin, his sweat. "Are you?"

"Guess I'm gonna have to learn," he says quietly.

"Yes. You are."

I run my tongue along the line of his collarbone, listening for his breathing, and gauging where to bite. He's almost frozen still as I trace out the curve; when I let him have my teeth, just a little, he shudders in my grip, a full-length tremor that seems to propagate through both our bodies and go straight to my cock.

My pelvic plates are almost completely retracted now; I'm hard and aching for him. But there's no harm in making sure.

"On your knees," I tell him.

He goes down obediently. I take his head in both hands, talons tight in his hair, and drag his mouth onto my cock. His lips are feverish; his tongue explores the ridges and scales with an urgency that takes my breath away. When I pull him closer, he tenses for a moment, but doesn't flinch as I press myself to the back of his throat. He's clearly had a _lot_ of practice.

I fuck his face roughly, and looking down at him, that pretty sarcastic mouth full to choking, it's all I can do to keep the brakes on enough that I don't come down his throat here and now. I drag my gaze up and look determinedly at the wall, moving by touch until the visor warns me he's short on air, and then pull back only far enough to let him breathe. His shoulders shudder, his chest heaving, as he gulps down one breath after another. He's still hard. If anything, harder. He looks up when he has his breath back, and catches me looking at him. Does it show in my face, what I want from him, how much I want it?

Whatever he sees, his expression hardens. He's dredged up a last scrap of defiance from somewhere and it shows in the way his jaw and shoulders set, just fractionally, before - 

He goes for me, a vicious punch to the knee that would likely have connected if I hadn't seen that flicker in his eyes. I catch his wrist, and put just enough pressure between the bones to make it clear that I can apply a lot more if I want to. Some of the colour goes out of his face. I doubt he'll try that again.

I step behind him, drop hold of his arm, and push him forward to hands and knees. He doesn't even try to move as I take a moment to pull on a glove and tip lubricant over my hand. 

I run one claw down his spine, all the way, down between his legs, until I can slide it carefully inside him. He moans, despite himself, and struggles to keep still as I work my finger into him, pressing deeper, feeling the taut pressure against my knuckles. He shudders when I find that sensitive spot that some humans have, and sinks forward, head on his folded arms, to whimper and flinch as I work it over. Just fingering him, shoved down helpless against the tiles, sends pulsing heat through my cock. 

I ditch the glove and fumble in the open drawer for a condom, and then more lube. It's awkward one-handed, but my other hand stays firmly on his hip, ready to dig my claws in properly if he moves. I almost want him to. 

_Give me a reason. Give me an_ excuse. 

When I push into him, he doesn't scream, but it's a close thing.

We're mismatched, asymmetric. Neither of us was built for the other; I'm too hard, too rough, too angular. He's soft, unprotected, already bruising himself on my plates. He's yielding where a turian would be solid, rounded where I have edges. And warm, no, more than warm, even for someone whose ancestors evolved on cloudy ice-capped Earth. His skin is sunburn-hot under my hands and against my thighs, and fucking his tight, reluctant ass is like thrusting into a well of pure heat.

I must feel like ice to him. 

I shift my grip on his hips for a better posture, searching for the angle of attack that will let me torment that internal sweet spot again. I can tell I've found it when he braces against the floor and pushes back against me, seemingly only half out of conscious volition; the rest is raw need, finally drowning out the defiance and the fear. 

He grinds his body backwards onto mine, gasping as I grip his waist and thrust deeper into him. If there's coherent words in there my translator can't pick them out, but his body speaks for itself. He grits his teeth and bites his tongue for a moment here or there, but can't suppress the moans. 

I wonder for a fleeting moment how I ever looked at him and only thought _pretty enough_. I can't even see his face, but the arc of his spine as I open him deserves to have poetry written about it. His shoulders shift with every thrust, the play of muscles practically visible under his scale-less, armourless skin. There are still broad horizontal lines across his back from where I pushed him against the wall.

I take one hand off his hip long enough to follow one of the lines from side to side with the tip of a claw. He shivers. The urge to use my claws properly, to mark him, rises in my gut again, and this time I don't resist it. 

I rake my fingers down over his lower back and flank. Tiny beads of crimson well up here and there along the scratches. First blood.

He arches underneath me convulsively, crying out. More shock than pain, I think; a scratch is nothing compared to how I've been using him. But it always pays to be sure.

"What's that?" I stop thrusting and lean into him, reaching around to stroke his cock gently, precisely. The head of his swollen shaft is leaking fluid: I rub it over his hot skin, and squeeze, gently, then harder, and then too hard. I feel him stiffen in my grip. "I'm sorry, did you want me to stop?"

He doesn't speak. I'm not wholly certain, looking at him, if he quite knows how to put words together any more or whether I've driven it out of him. But after a long, cooling moment he shakes his head, first wearily then more decisively, and pushes back against me in wordless need.

No more bravado. No more resistance. How the mighty are fallen.

I run one claw down the length of his shaft and press, just a little. Scratch, just enough to graze the skin, and feel him twitch and shudder under my hand. "Oh, look at that. You _like_ my claws …"

He moans, completely lost, and I shove roughly back into him. It's ungainly and undignified and I'm past caring. His scent is a drug. I mean to draw it out but I don't have the will: I can't think of anything except him, his body arching against mine, the taste of his sweat, his blood, his impossible, irresistible heat.

I need him more than I've needed anyone, anything.

I hold his shoulders and dig my thumbs into the hard muscle until the blood starts. He gasps, high and ragged, as I score Archangel's insignia into his back. There are no words in it. What's he going to do, call out my name?

He spills himself over the pristine tiles moments later, shuddering and tightening. It's enough to put me over the edge as well, climax crashing into me like a shot I didn't see coming, and I have to put both hands down to stop myself falling on him as the cresting white shudders wring me out. My own weight jars through my elbows and wrists, and the abrupt change of angle slips my already-softening cock out of him. I scrabble back a little, lightheaded, and breathing hard, and look down on him.

He's sagged forward onto the floor, elbows on the tile. His hair is rat-tailed with sweat; his back is dotted with pinprick smears of blood. There's lube and cum on the floor between his thighs. He's a wreck. Yet even as I look he lifts his head, pulling one hand under himself ready to push back up to his knees, and something raw and unfamiliar twists in my chest at that tiny gesture of ... it's not defiance; I don't think it's conscious enough to be defiance. It's below the level of deliberate thought. It's that he's too far under to put one word next to another, running on need and instinct, and still when he's bleeding on the floor the first thing he does with a free breath is try to get back up.

_Now,_ some inner instinct says. _He's getting his breath back. Now._

I look reflexively for the pistol in the sink. It's right where I left it; I'd only need to come up to one knee to reach it from here. I could do it all in one movement - pull up, reach out, pick up the gun, and bring the barrel round to the base of his skull. 

Isn't that what I came here to do?

  
  


**_III_ **

**_AFTERLIFE_ **

I stare at him, my chest suddenly tight with how much I need him, how much I can't think of losing him. For a frozen moment nothing happens, and I'm about to say something when Shepard half turns to look over his shoulder - I see half of an exhausted grin - and says "Damn, Garrus, that was something else."

I let out a long breath, and only then realise I was holding it. "Yeah."

That's when I come apart. The last of Archangel falls away from around me like a cracking eggshell, and suddenly I don't know whether to laugh or cry or throw up. What in the hell did I just _do_?

I settle for gathering him up in both arms, pulling him in close. His back is hot and sticky against my chest plates as I hold him for a long minute. He's still only half here; it always takes him a little while to come back to equilibrium after pushing himself this hard. He says it's a little like coming out of zero-g, and having to remember how gravity works before you can go anywhere.

I hold him while he reorientates himself, and let my own heart slow back down. I'm shaking. I hold him close. I don't want to let go.

"You know what looks good right now?" he says after what might be a minute, half an hour, an eternity. "That bath."

It's warm and a chance to sit down without making much more mess; I'll take it. Shepard climbs in and relaxes into the water, leaning back and spreading both arms out along the edge behind him. I sit down more gingerly on the edge. I still don't understand why humans love being in water so much: they drown in it almost as easily as we do, and yet in they go any chance they get, even the sensible ones. At least if I'm here, I can haul him out.

He nudges up, snaking his arm behind me, and leans his head against my thigh.

I'm crashing. I can feel it like wind on my face, arrowing downwards towards a hard landing. I can already hear the regrets coming up to meet me: _in the name of all that's holy, Vakarian, what's_ wrong _with you?_

As if he's heard me thinking, Shepard budges in closer again and puts his hand on my thigh. "Hey."

Breathe. "Hey."

"I …" He starts to say something, then stops, overtakes himself. "Garrus. Are you okay? Did I overdo it?"

Breathe. "I - no, you were fine. I need a moment."

I pitch forward, staring down at the bubbles drifting on the water around my calves. I rest my forehead on my knees and concentrate on getting air into me that smells of soap rather than blood. 

I hear Shepard scramble out of the water and come up behind me; feel his arm over the back of my collar, his other hand on my forehead, checking for the pulse behind the browplate. His touch slows the fall. 

Breathe.

Shepard, my Shepard, warm and solid against my side, whole and glowing with satisfaction and alive -

Alive and always in search of ways to prove it. The dead don't feel pain. He revels in it. 

Breathe.

The vertigo passes off slowly. Shepard brings me water when I can look up again, stands over me while I drink it - it doesn't really touch the sides - and then brings me another. He's still naked and covered in livid marks from my claws and teeth. You wouldn't know it from the way he moves.  
  
Breathe.

Spirits, the things we do for one another.

We clean up. Shepard showers first, while I scrub my hands, put the trash in the recycler, mop the floor and figure out where all the pieces of my armour ended up. When he's out, I medi-gel his back. He's grinning and glowing like he's just come back from a healthy workout; still flying on adrenaline. It's me who winces as I go back over the grazes, making sure they're clean and gelled shut.

That done, he dries his hair and puts some clothes back on and goes to look for extra bedding, and I wash. I shower on autopilot, cleaning myself up mechanically. I turn the temperature down, then down again, until the heat is no longer the first thing to notice about it, and my head clears a little more. 

By the time we make it back to bed, I'm all but asleep on my feet. Shepard's raided what looks like every cupboard in the house for extra pillows to compensate for the human-designed flat bed. I wedge myself into the pile; he strips down to underwear and curls up next to me, like we always do. I drop my visor down the side of the bed by accident. He can't reach the light switch; I lean across his body to get it instead. Mundane things. We could be a normal couple settling down in a hotel room rather than ... whatever it is we are to one another; unprofessional comrades, ill-matched lovers, bad examples. 

Right now, I dream of mundanity. Of settling in with him for the night and not half-wondering if it'll be the last. Of a chance to breathe.

I nuzzle into his shoulder. There are rather more teeth marks there than I remember. Ah well.

Shepard reaches drowsily for my free hand, and is still holding it when he falls asleep.

*

I wake up before he does, as usual.

He's sleeping half underneath me, shoulder tucked in under my chest, my keelbone against his back. I don't know how he does it; it can't be comfortable, but reliably, about every other time we share a bed, I wake up to find he's nestled up like this, burrowed underneath me in the night.

Last night's scratches are already healing up.


End file.
